A ton of us worked our way up through the ranks of privately run radio. As far back as I can remember, well 40 years anyway, the CBC was the pinnacle of a high paying broadcast job. One of the reasons was that they had a union. As the rest of us worked for minimum wage or lower in non-union shops, I watched the CBC pay out huge salaries, health benefits and more. They seem to over-hire in some areas as well. One day, I was in the CBC to voice a TV spot and reached down to plug in my mic, the producer screamed at me …”NO..We have a guy for that”. After that I was afraid to use the CBC washroom.So now we hear that the CBC is laying off employees quicker than Jian Ghomeshi can say, “I’m Innocent, I’m going to beat this rap.” I do feel sorry for the families of the laid off workers. Who among us hasn’t been in the fired or laid off position? It’s not fun to have the industry you love, seem to turn it’s back on you. As far as I can see the CBC has just been slapped in the face by Mr. Real World.

I'm trying to figure out what your point is.Are you actually saying that because these folks were good/lucky enough to get a job with CBC, and the perks that go with it, that we shouldn't feel sorry for them getting laid off?

It’s not about being talented enough but lucky maybe. It’s about not being wise with taxpayers dollars. It’s all caught up with them because of complacency. You can feel sorry for them or not. Personally I’m just a little tired of hearing…. “Oh, the poor CBC”! They steered their own boat.

I don't know how many of you have seen a copy of "The Birth of Radio in Canada - Signing On" by Bill McNeil and Morris Wolfe, published in 1982, but Max Ferguson's piece of it (over 100 Canadian broadcasters wrote a page or three each for it) is the only place I've ever seen him write about the birth of Unions at the CBC.

He doesn't mention an exact date, but it appears to be the very early 1950s. He was able to continue his popular Rawhide daily radio show, but it was a bit of a transition for him to move from the kind of one man show that most of us who have worked in private radio are used to, to suddenly have a large staff assigned to his show. Max worked well with people, and made the whole thing work, with the sound effects being the greatest challenge.

For those of you who feel that eliminating the Unions at the CBC is the first and most important step to saving the organization, I just don't see how that could happen. There have been some pretty nasty strikes over the last 60 years at the CBC, so I cannot see either the CBC or the Federal government being able to eliminate Unions at the CBC if they cannot even maintain Labour Peace. Not to mention that all levels of government in this country, except small towns, are Union Shops.

Over the last 20 years, it has been a real eye opener for me to see how many successful stations in the U.S. and Canada are "Union Shops" (or were, in the 1960s, when I listened to them). Looking around the Pacific Northwest and private stations in Western Canada, non-Union was the Norm, with DJs all alone in the station for much of the broadcast week. Other than a few talk show hosts, you ran your own board.

Many of the stations we loved listening to at a distance, like WLS and KFRC, were Union Shops with board operators for all their announcers. No one is going to say that those stations sounded worse than their non-union rivals, at least in terms of ratings numbers.

My point is that Unions are part of the CBC, just as Unions are part of all levels of government in this country. I cannot see either of those situations changing. The best managers I ever worked with at the CBC were like Chief Engineers that we all knew and loved: they could make anything work by knowing exactly how things work.